


It Happened Fast

by WellSchitt



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Captivity, Claustrophobia, Disturbing Themes, Injury, Kidnapping, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Strangers to Lovers, but pretty dark for this fandom, not as dark as the tags indicate, they’ve been kidnapped together
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-23 12:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21320431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WellSchitt/pseuds/WellSchitt
Summary: “Hello! Hey! Hey, um… guy? Stranger person? Can you- can you wake up, please?” The voice in his ear was high, bordering on shrill. It sounded afraid.At first, Patrick thought he must have left the television on.Then someone gently touched his shoulder, and that wasn’t right—he was off-again with Rachel, so he lived alone—yet Patrick still couldn’t quite open his eyes. He registered then that he was in pain: his hand, his ribs, and especially his head.It wasn’t a hangover. It felt sharper, more concentrated. Eyes still squeezed shut, battling nausea, he slowly lifted a hand to his scalp. He immediately had to flinch away, pain shocking his system.His hand came away damp. He was bleeding.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 66
Kudos: 135





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This really won't be THAT dark of a fic, but take care of yourselves and don't read if any of the tags could be an issue <3
> 
> The biggest warning of all: this is very much a WIP, and I don't always get to write on a schedule, so updates could be sporadic.

"Hello! Hey! Hey, um… guy? Stranger person? Can you- can you wake up, please?” The voice in his ear was high, bordering on shrill. It sounded afraid.

At first, Patrick thought he must have left the television on.

Then someone gently touched his shoulder, and _that_ wasn’t right—he was off-again with Rachel, so he lived alone—yet Patrick still couldn’t quite open his eyes. He registered then that he was in pain: his hand, his ribs, and especially his head.

It wasn’t a hangover. It felt sharper, more concentrated. Eyes still squeezed shut, battling nausea, he slowly lifted a hand to his scalp. He immediately had to flinch away, pain shocking his system.

His hand came away damp. He was bleeding.

_Were you playing hockey? Or maybe there was a car accident?_

The voice in his ear kept up the panicky chatter, but Patrick’s focus was fading in and out. He forced his eyes open. The light was dim, but he had to close them again almost immediately.

Somewhere between ten seconds and ten hours passed before he understood anything else the person above him was saying.

“Fuck. Look, you’re bleeding—it’s really gross—and I don’t know what to do, but I’m going to at least try to clean you up a little? Alright? Um… moan, or something, if that’s ok?”

Using all his willpower, Patrick pushed his eyes open again, and this time they stayed open. A handsome man with bloodshot eyes was peering down at him.

“Oh, thank god. Hi. I know you just woke up and your head is, like, hamburger meat on one side.” He waved a hand over the left side of Patrick’s face. “But I’m_ really_ hoping you have some idea what the fuck is going on here? Because if this is some kind of prank, or- or performance art, I have to say, it’s all _very_ gauche-”

Without his permission, Patrick’s eyes closed again.

“Hey!” Fingers snapped right in his face, and his eyes opened again instinctively. “Ok, according to every medical show I’ve ever watched, I think… I think I should keep you awake? Right?”

The stranger could barely catch his breath, like he’d been running. Maybe he’d seen the accident, and run to help him?

Patrick tried to sit up and regretted it almost immediately, nausea sweeping through him.

“No no no, lay back down, you look like you’re about to die.”

Suddenly Patrick noticed that the man wasn’t wearing a shirt; his chest was hairless, pale, and heaving. Patrick had his shirt, but taking stock, he realized that he was barefoot. Someone had also taken his belt. That was odd, wasn’t it?

Fuck, he wished he could _focus_—he was struggling to carry a thought from one second to the next.

“Who are you?” he managed to ask, voice scraping his throat.

“David Rose.”

“And you’re...” Patrick frowned. The stranger—David—clearly was not a paramedic. “Did you call an ambulance?” He tried to look around, to figure out why no one was coming to help him. His mind kept trying to orient itself (_Laying on a cold floor—are you in a bathroom? Injured—are you in a hospital? Concrete—are you on a subway platform?_), but there was nothing familiar enough for it to latch onto.

He was in a small, nondescript gray room with cinderblock walls. There was some kind of cot beside them, but he and David were both on the floor.

The knuckles on his hand were scraped. Had he been in a fight? Something nagged at him. He had been talking to someone on his way home from work, trying to get their attention, and then suddenly they’d lashed out-

“I’m sorry. They, um. They took our phones.” Fear cracked David’s voice, and Patrick tried to read his expressive eyes.

What he saw there was pure terror.

“Are we in prison?” Patrick insisted on sitting up now, pain and nausea be damned. “Because _they_ jumped _me-_”

“Who? Who jumped- you remember being taken?!”

“_Taken?_” Ice flooded Patrick’s veins. “Taken where?”

“Um. Best guess? We’re in some serial killer’s basement.” David waved a hand wildly. “I woke up here. Took something someone gave me in a club, and it must have really fucked me up, because that’s the last thing I remember before waking up on that cot.”

_A club. Loud, grating music. Someone being dragged._ Patrick squinted against the effort it took to focus.

“Were they wearing a mask? The person who gave you the drug?”

“_Everyone_ was wearing a mask, it was a masquerade.”

And suddenly, Patrick remembered the rest of it.

—

_He was walking home from work much later than usual for a _ _Friday night_ _, but he was going back to his hometown to surprise his parents for his mom’s birthday the next morning and didn’t want to have to finish his expense reports during the visit. Getting from his office in Chelsea to his shitty apartment in Queens would take almost two hours at this time of night, but at least he’d be able to properly relax for a couple of days._

_Patrick was still getting used to New York, and he missed home most at night. The city during the day was a hopeful, undeniably alive place, full of cars honking, tourists gawking, and natives shouting into their phones. He liked having twenty different kinds of food within walking distance on his lunch breaks. He liked watching baseball games in crowded bars, everyone ragging on him if he dared to cheer aloud for the Blue Jays._

_Nighttime in New York was a different beast. The sound of sirens seemed louder, and every other person he passed seemed to be in crisis: that couple screaming at each other, for example, and that guy clearly high out of his mind being pulled towards a van by his friend._

_Frowning, Patrick watched for a moment as the huge man in a gray feathered mask helped the stumbling smaller man, supporting most of his weight as they moved to the curb._

_Except- except the smaller guy had duct tape around his wrists._

_Startled, Patrick froze for a few seconds, instinctively tightening his grip on his messenger bag. He had to be seeing this wrong. He looked around to see if anyone else had noticed, but the few clubbers smoking on the street weren’t looking their direction._

_The van didn’t have a license plate, Patrick didn’t see any cops around, and this was happening now._

_“Hey! Hey, is he ok?” Patrick called out, jogging forward._

_It was a stupid impulse. He should have called 991._

_“Just had a few too many,” the masked guy said roughly._

_“That’s- that’s ok. Um, actually, he’s my friend,” Patrick said, thinking fast. “I was coming to meet him, he said to meet him here. So- so I’ll call us a cab. But, hey, um, thanks for trying to-”_

_It all happened incomprehensibly fast after that. Someone stepped out from behind the van and dove at him. Instinctively, clumsily, Patrick tried to hit them, but he’d never punched anyone before in his life._

_He kicked out, then tried to throw his elbow into their ribcage, but it wasn’t anywhere near enough._

_Something metal came down hard on his head, and Patrick was unconscious before he even registered the pain._

—

He told David what he remembered. 

“Will anyone notice that you’re missing?” David whispered.

“Not until Monday.” Patrick swallowed. His parents weren't expecting him. Now he couldn't even call—they'd think he forgot Mom's birthday. “You?”

David shook his head.

—

The next few hours were a blur of adrenaline and panic.

They pounded on the walls screaming for help. The frantic edge in David’s voice added to Patrick’s fear, and at some point he was sobbing as they shouted. Their fists made dull thuds on the cinderblock walls.

They were underground. Patrick stared at a hatch on the ceiling, the room’s only door.

His panic ratcheted up impossibly higher. David saw him looking at the hatch and seemed to understand. He slumped to the floor, pale and trembling.

Head aching, fists stinging, Patrick watched numbly as David collapsed. He wanted to yell at him, to say that they couldn’t give up—he wanted to scream at David that they had to get out of here—but he knew they weren’t accomplishing anything. No one could hear them.

They were both winded, almost hyperventilating, but Patrick couldn’t sit down. Terror held him up like puppet strings. He began to look around the tiny room more carefully, trying to be methodical about examining every inch of it.

There_ had_ to be something they could use to fight, to escape, or to call for help. He refused to believe they were really trapped—his brain literally would not accept the possibility. It seemed absurd, impossible, that this could happen to him after a typical day at the office.

Any minute, someone would come and tell them that it had all been a misunderstanding.

Because he wasn’t going to die in here. That kind of thing didn’t happen to people like him: small town Patrick Brewer, nice to everybody, a little boring. People like him weren’t kidnapped of the streets, never to be heard from again.

If he could just calm down, force his vibrating thoughts and thundering heart rate to settle, he could figure this out.

“Two men in masks, and they were big. That’s all you remember?” David asked without opening his eyes.

Patrick gritted his teeth. “And a light gray van. That’s it. It happened fast.”

He decided that they were in some kind of bomb shelter. Well, unless David was right and it was a dungeon specially designed by a serial killer… but Patrick clung to his denial. This all had to be a mistake, a joke, someone would come any minute and-

Biting his lip hard, Patrick blinked away his tears and forced his breathing back under control.

The main room was maybe four feet wide, and barely long enough for the cot, which was the only thing there resembling furniture. Underneath it there was a pallet of water bottles and a plastic bag that contained two boxes of protein bars.

Jesus. There were sixteen chocolate brownie flavored protein bars between them and starvation.

“And you just… decided to try to stop them, by yourself, all alone and without a weapon. Rather than, say, calling the police.”

“It. Happened. Fast.”

There was a smaller room that had a chemical toilet and a few rolls of toilet paper on the floor beside it. The wall separating it had a doorframe, but no door. The floor in the bathroom had a small drain in one corner; the ceiling in the main room had only the single hanging bulb and the hatch.

That was it. That was all they had to work with.

If they broke the lightbulb to try to fashion a weapon, they’d be in utter darkness.

Patrick couldn't catch his breath. He felt like someone was stabbing him in the temple, pain and panic combining into something like a migraine.

Maybe they’d been buried alive. Left down here to starve.

He stood on his tiptoes, but his fingers barely brushed the hatch door. So he jumped, punching upward wildly.

The hatch didn’t budge.

He screamed as he tried again, ignoring the pain lancing through his sore, bleeding hand.


	2. Chapter 2

Bleary eyed and exhausted, David watched the other man—Patrick—frantically hit out at the ceiling. He was grunting every time his fist made contact, his face contorted with fear, pain, or both. The trap door clanged and rattled, but didn’t budge. David wasn’t used to being the cooler head in a crisis, but he was certainly keeping it together better than his would-be white knight at the moment. Then again, maybe that was down to the drugs still siphoning their way out of his bloodstream.

Speaking of blood, there was a sizable and growing smear of it on the hatch from Patrick’s knuckles.

“I told you, I already tried. First thing I did when I woke up. It’s not going to open.” His voice sounded foreign to him, rough and small. God, he just wanted the pounding to stop. He was crashing, the adrenaline high leaving him as suddenly as it had come.

“Sorry, do you have a better idea?” Patrick snapped, rounding on him. “Or are you just planning to sit there and wait for them to come back?”

David didn’t respond, letting his head fall to his arms instead. He was damp with sweat, his throat hurt from screaming, and the concrete wall was cold on his bare back. He was also too tired, and too afraid, to deal with someone screaming in his face right now.

_Dissociation_, he thought, the word coming to him from some long-forgotten therapist’s office.

“Why did they take your shirt, anyway?” Patrick asked, with only a little less hostility. He gave up on the hatch, finally, and started pacing the length of the tiny room again instead.

“Considering how I smell right now, I think it was actually an act of mercy.” At Patrick’s confused look, he explained, “I’m guessing I threw up on myself.”

“Jesus. Do you know what they slipped you?”

“I didn’t ask.” Which had, of course, been incredibly fucking stupid, but it was a stupid thing he’d done countless times before. The worst thing that had happened to him until now was waking up on Heidi Montag’s floor with a 12-hour gap in his memory.

Now his stupidity had gotten him abducted and locked in a cell—him and this uptight Old Navy mannequin.

Patrick began unbuttoning his shirt, and David immediately felt guilty. He was a person, not a mannequin. And it was possible that the shirt was from the Gap.

“Thank you, but chambray with that weave doesn’t have much elasticity.”

“I was thinking I’d give you my undershirt. It’s loose on me, and stretchy.” He shrugged off his button down and tossed it to the cot.

“Why would anyone wear an undershirt that’s loose and stretchy?” David’s voice trembled dangerously.

This stranger shouldn’t be _kind_ to him. It was David’s fault they were in this fucking mess.

He felt like his heart was about to combust, and not metaphorically. Or maybe it was his lungs. Inhaling as deeply as he could, he moved to fingers around his neck, trying to find his pulse. For half a second, he thought he saw the ceiling dropping lower, coming to smash them.

_Must have been a shadow_, David thought, but his eyes kept darting upward to be sure.

“Hey, you alright?” Patrick was holding out his undershirt, his button down hanging loose at his shoulders. His big brown eyes were soft and concerned.

“I think- I think I’m actually having a heart attack. Or, um, maybe a stroke? I don’t- I’m really lightheaded, and my heart isn’t, isn’t working. It’s not getting enough air, or blood, or… or something.”

Patrick crouched down beside him. “I, uh, I don’t think it’s a heart attack, ok? It sounds like a panic attack, which means that you’re going to be fine, we just need to breathe through it. Have you ever had- I mean, even if you haven’t had one before, it would make sense-”

“Panic attacks aren’t real,” David interrupted, panting. “That’s just something celebrities say when they’re too strung out to perform, or, like, as an excuse when they don’t want to come to your bar mitzvah.”

Patrick’s head tilted. “They’re real, David. Panic attacks are very real. I’ve had them before, diagnosed by a doctor and everything. Which is why I know that we just need to try to stay calm and wait for it to pass.” At David’s _are you fucking kidding me_ look, Patrick amended, “As calm as possible. Here, let me get you a water bottle, ok?”

That was a good idea. “One of those bar things, too?” They looked disgusting, but David hadn’t eaten since lunch—and apparently he’d thrown that up.

“Put it on.” Patrick gestured to the shirt that he’d dropped into David’s lap at some point, then sat down beside him with the water and protein bars. Somehow his nearness made David feel better, and it seemed to be doing something for Patrick, too—his eyes grew a little less wild.

“Thank you.” David sat forward and pulled the skin-warm tshirt on. It was tight, especially across his shoulders and chest, but at least there was a layer of fabric between his back and the wall. “My sister never told me that being kidnapped was so fucking terrifying.”

“What?!” Patrick’s face jerked towards him.

“I mean, obviously it is. Obviously. It’s not like I thought... um. But she always made it sound like it’s no biggie? ’Ugh, David, just wire them half of it now, I’ll cover the rest when I’m safe in Dubai.’ She practically has a routine.”

“I’m sorry, _your sister_ has been kidnapped before?”

“Mm. Three times, that I know of.” David took a bite of the protein bar. It actually wasn’t terrible. Chocolate covers a multitude of comestible sins, his mother would say.

“What- do you- are you telling me… David, do you know why they took us? Why we’re here?”

“Well I don’t _know_, but I’m assuming it’s for money? A ransom? Although one time Alexis was kidnapped by a Saudi prince for-” he glanced edgily at Patrick “-not money. But I’m sure that’s not what’s going on here,” he continued quickly, because no one wanted to marry _him_ that badly.

Patrick’s muscles relaxed so suddenly and completely that he seemed to melt to one side, slouching almost to the floor. “So, probably not an ax murderer, then? We're not about to be, I don’t know, fed through a wood chipper?”

David didn’t think he should make any promises on that front. “I mean… gray van. Creepy basement cell. I’d say it’s definitely still on the table.”

Then there was the fact that whoever had taken them had only wanted David. He was valuable to them, a cash cow.

Patrick was a witness. He was a wrench in the works.

Anxiety surging, David glanced up at the trap door again.

Still looking hopeful, Patrick asked, “Yeah, but you, you come from a wealthy family, right? That’s what you’re saying? That you think they took you for some kind of payout?”

“Yeah. Did you not recognize my name, earlier? David Rose, I own South Street Gallery?” When Patrick shook his head, he added with a small sigh, “My father founded Rose Video.”

Recognition and relief washed over Patrick’s face. “And you didn’t think to mention that a few hours ago?”

“I just- I thought you knew, when I told you my name.” It wasn’t a totally unreasonable assumption. He’d been on the cover of two tabloids this year, once for each D-list celebrity marriage he’d accidentally broken up.

“That’s- that’s really good news, David. Jesus.” Patrick sat back up and started doing up his buttons with shaking fingers. “Because I’m- I’m a nobody. I just moved to the city, I hardly ever call my folks… I’m not sure my boss would even bother reporting me missing before he replaced me. But people will be looking for you. The police, your family. The media.”

“I mean, maybe? But I wouldn’t start celebrating yet,” David warned him. “My parents screen their calls very aggressively.”

“No, I know. We're... we're still in danger. I get that,” Patrick said, taking a small bite of his protein bar. "But a ransom situation is- it's infinitely better than what I thought was happening here." He still looked afraid, but he was no longer the frantic caged animal he’d seemed before.

Even though the thought was twisting his stomach like a vice, David decided not to mention the thing about Patrick being an unexpected, unwanted complication to a ruthless extortionist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm enjoying this fic, but it's a challenge. Hopefully you enjoy it even if it turns out goofy/ooc.
> 
> My thought here was that David would handle things better than Patrick at first, because he feels like he understands what's happening to them. His experience with Alexis, and the assumption that something similar is happening to him, would help a LOT with the initial shock and terror--whereas Patrick is just in a blind, confused panic.

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something new.


End file.
